A logical turnabout companion thread to Two Many Cats’: Would anyone care to recommend little-seen gems?
I’ll recommend this one. In 1966 or so, I was in a children’s theater production involving enactments of poems. (I played Jonathan Bing.) One deep-voiced girl slicked back her hair and acted this one. Being a daydreamy poetical slacker type even then, I loved the spirit of the thing, and spent years looking for it on the Internet. It isn’t often that something turns out to be as good as you remembered from childhood, but this did. (And unlax, moderators, the thing’s at least 102 years old.)
’Tonio
*By Theodosia Pickering Garrison*
I PLAYED all day — the other children worked
Hard in the vineyard, and my father said, " Hungry to-night shall 'Tonio go to bed! "
And scolded. Where I hid I heard his words
And laughed and ran ; the leaves were gold and red
And the wind whirled them through the woods like birds.
All day I played — the sun and wind and I ;
Between the trees and up and down the hill ;
And the noon came and it was still, so still ;
And I stretched out full-length upon the grass
And watched the clouds like white sails reach and fill
And catch the sun for freight, and drift and pass.
I played all day. Oh, it was good to think
How hard my brothers worked while I went free.
" Hungry to-night goes 'Tonio," so said he;
But I danced on the hill-top with the moon —
A great red moon that came up merrily
And called the wind to pipe us both a tune.
" Hungry to-night shall 'Tonio go to bed ! "
Ah well, to-morrow I shall work and eat
And go to bed with aching hands and feet,
And sleep as oxen sleep, that plow all day;
To-night I shall sleep hungry but dream sweet —
I wish that I could always starve and play.